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Degradation Accounting Methods
Katie GosleeProgram Officer, Ecosystem Services UnitWinrock [email protected] www.winrock.org
Measuring and Monitoring Forest Degradation Across Asia
Presentation Overview
Overview of activity- and land-based accounting Examples of each accounting method Rationale for deciding which to use
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Activity- and Land-based Accounting
Methods described by IPCC Activity-based considers specific human
activities leading to forest degradation, and estimates emissions separately for each activity.
Land-based estimates the change in carbon stocks in a specified area of land, regardless of activities occurring.
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Activity-based
• Full accounting of all land-based emissions.
• Can capture net effect of emissions and sinks across large areas.
• Difficult to distinguish between effects of multiple activities.
• Requires large amounts of data that are expensive to collect.
• Measurement resolution will likely miss many localized small-scale impacts.
• May simplify tracking net emissions and removals from place to place or year to year.
• Emissions combined across activities.
• Where multiple activities occur, it may be difficult to verify emissions.
• Inherently distinguishes between activities.
• Cost effective approach; complexity of methods based on each activity
• Small scale impacts can be included by activity if deemed significant.
• Requires development of emission or removal factors for each activity in each region.
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Land-based
Activity-based accounting - Guyana
Limited existing biomass data No reliable data on land use change Most degradation from logging and small scale
mining Field work focused on areas most impacted by
degradation Some activities have yet to be included
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Land-based accounting - Vietnam
National Forest Inventory with extensive biomass data
Existing data on forest cover change over 20 years• Including degradation of timber stocks
Not clear which activities result in emissions from degradation
High uncertainty in areas/forest types with few plots
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Rationale for accounting system
Are there existing data on forest biomass? Is extent of land use change quantified? Is degradation occurring across the landscape,
rather than in specific areas? Activity-based is common and cost-effective
approach to degradation accounting
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Monitoring Forest Degradation Emissions
Need to know magnitude and cause to design a system for degradation• Difficult to detect areas of degradation with Remote Sensing• Emissions estimated with emission factors and activity data• Not all agents of degradation can be monitored with same
approach• Can use government and other statistics or social surveys
Procedures for estimating impact on C stocks already exist under IPCC for some forms, such as logging
Other forms require development of procedure
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Developing a monitoring system
Simple Based on existing systems Affordable Replicable & Upscaleable Focus on areas likely subject to degradation Include spot checking and allow some error Verifiable
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Challenges
Data consistency Consistency of implementation Financial resources Technical capacity Replicability
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